‘Four Score and Seven Years Ago …’

Lincoln’s handwritten draft of the Gettysburg Address.
On Nov. 2, 1863, Gettysburg lawyer David Wills wrote to Abraham Lincoln, officially inviting the president to attend the dedication of a new military cemetery on Nov. 19 and provide “a few appropriate remarks” at the ceremony. Despite his heavy workload, Lincoln agreed to participate. In addition to honoring the fallen soldiers to be interred in this cemetery, the dedication ceremony would allow him to explain to their loved ones, and all Americans, why the cause of the union was worth fighting and dying for.
Handwritten second page of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, ending with the famous "government of the people" phrase.
▪ The first page of the Gettysburg Address (below), written by Abraham Lincoln in pen on Executive Mansion stationery. He wrote the second page (above) in pencil on ordinary paper. Manuscript Division
Handwritten first page of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on "Executive Mansion" stationery, beginning "Four score."
Lincoln’s “few appropriate remarks” would later become famous as the Gettysburg Address and continue to resonate with people around the world.

For a document as iconic as the Gettysburg Address now is, many details about its creation and delivery have been lost to time or clouded by conflicting memories of witnesses. Lincoln began working on the address in Washington, drafting his opening lines in ink on Executive Mansion stationery. Harkening back to the Declaration of Independence 87 years earlier (“four score and seven years ago”), Lincoln noted that the Revolutionary generation had founded a new nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal.’” That nation was now being torn apart by civil war, Lincoln continued, and the question of “whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure” remained to be answered. But at that ceremony, they gathered to dedicate a burial ground honoring those who gave their lives so that the nation would survive.

A formal 19th-century portrait of Abraham Lincoln seated, dressed in a suit, vest, and bowtie with a pocket watch chain.
▪ Alexander Gardner made this portrait of Lincoln on Nov. 8, 1863, 11 days before he delivered his speech at Gettysburg. Prints and Photographs Division
Precisely when Lincoln wrote the second page of his address is not known. Perhaps it was part of an earlier draft? Perhaps he was inspired to alter the ending of his speech after touring a portion of the nearby battlefield on the morning of the ceremony?

Regardless, after penciling connecting words on the page of Executive Mansion stationery, Lincoln put pencil to a piece of ordinary writing paper to call for his audience, and all Americans, to honor those who had given their “last full measure of devotion” by dedicating themselves to completing the unfinished work of the war. He called for them to “highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Having completed his remarks, Lincoln may have folded the pages together, creating matching creases in the mismatched pieces of paper. The president then amended his address further during its delivery, invoking a higher power in “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom …”

The Library holds two copies of the Gettysburg Address, written in Lincoln’s own hand. When either is on display, visitors often linger and carefully read Lincoln’s words. Why do the roughly 270 words of the Gettysburg Address continue to resonate?

Each guest has their own answer, but in addition to the beauty of Lincoln’s language, his address reminds us of the ideals on which the United States was founded, the unfinished nature of the experiment and that each generation must dedicate itself anew to ensuring that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

—Michelle Krowl is a historian in the Manuscript Division.
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